Lack of Early Harvest in IPEF Trade Talks Bemoaned and Celebrated
The trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which already was being criticized for not being ambitious enough, is not going to be finished as quickly as the pillars run by the Commerce Department on tax and corruption, supply chains and climate, the administration acknowledged as Asian leaders meet in San Francisco.
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Wendy Cutler, former lead negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said in an emailed statement that not unveiling any agreements reached in that pillar -- even if it's not finished yet -- "is a major setback for U.S. trade policy and those that recognize the importance of the U.S. economically engaging in the Indo-Pacific region.
"It has shocked our trading partners, many of which have been lukewarm on IPEF from the get-go, but nevertheless were willing IPEF participants in hopes that this would lead to more U.S. economic engagement going forward.
"Trade negotiations have their ups and downs and this is clearly a down moment."
Cutler added that the prospects are poor for making more progress on IPEF during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at Public Citizen, said the Biden administration was right to let the deadline slip.
"If the cake’s not baked yet, don’t eat it," she said in a news release.
"Better to miss this deadline than to ink a deal that fails to live up to the administration’s promise of ‘worker-centered’ trade, especially when rules governing 40% of the global economy are on the line.
"The goal of a final IPEF text by the APEC meeting was always ambitious -- and, honestly, arbitrary. It would have been easy to sign off on a deal that did not meet the bar for binding and enforceable labor and environmental standards, and move on. But by extending the talks beyond the target completion date, the administration indicates it’s serious about delivering ‘worker-centered’ trade. And by resisting calls for an ‘early harvest,’ the administration maintains bargaining chips to use later on to secure binding labor and environmental standards."
Public Citizen was one of the loudest voices against ratifying the TPP, and St. Louis said based on what she knows of the trade pillar talks, they are different from the TPP in important ways, such as not including investor-state dispute mechanisms and not pushing for longer exclusivity rules for prescription medicines. Those elements also were either removed or mostly removed from the NAFTA rewrite. The intellectual property issues for medicines were removed when USTR Katherine Tai worked for then House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., who led a committee that negotiated changes to USMCA before approving the deal.
"Corporations that were used to manipulating trade agreements to thwart regulation were already complaining loudly, but Big Tech really hit the ceiling when it became clear the administration is not pursuing controversial ‘digital trade’ proposals -- a move applauded by policymakers and civil society who have been working to hold Big Tech accountable domestically through privacy, anti-discrimination, and anti-monopoly policies," the statement from St. Louis said.
"It’s time for corporate lobbyists to get the message and stand down. The old model of corporate-dominated trade is dead. And if a trade deal doesn’t meet standards to protect workers and the environment, it’s not worth concluding," St. Louis said.